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• Having had it pointed out to me that “I had a quiet morning in bed, alone, which rained a little, as usual” isn’t one of the best sentences around, I’ve decided to change it to “Arise! For lo! The morn has broken. Arise! For lo! The rains are coming. Arise! For lo! While he sleeps alone, the world awakens”. I didn’t get up until around lunchtime and then spent the afternoon online chatting.

Afternoon

• I phoned Silas to see what he’s up to and had a whinge about people who want their computers fixed which takes hours and hours, but there’s no way either Silas or I can say no or charge them $700 as they’re friends or friends of friends. I tested Windows XP’s “Remote Assistance” feature with Shan. It seems to work quite well although somewhat lagged, presumably because we were going through a satellite link and I’m connected via a slow modem – or slow line rather. It is exactly what I need for helping Mum when she’s got silly problems in Word or something similar.

Evening

• I showered and drove into Cooktown not long after eight o’clock and arrived about half an hour after that. I went to get petrol but discovered that the Cooktown Ampol no longer sells Lead Replacement Petrol. This is the first servo I’ve seen that doesn’t sell it, although I expect there’ll be a lot more soon. However, as there’s no other servo open in Cooktown at this time of night I wasn’t left with many options so didn’t get fuel, just driving down to the Shire Hall where the party was instead. I then walked down to Bliss’s Pizza and bought a small vegetarian pizza, which was quite nice, and spent the rest of the night at the Shire Hall losing my hearing. They had dj’s, the “Buzerk Brothers” from Atherton, who seem to be able to make loud noises as well as any, and definitely did.

3:05am

• I’ve just arrived home. The party was okay, I enjoyed myself which is, of course, what makes it okay. I’m not quite sure how many people were there, I’d say about one hundred at any one time but it’s very hard to say – I could be quite wrong. I guess Sarah will know tomorrow. It’s good to see all the old Cooktown people again. There’s Mad Dave with the swastika tattooed on his nose – quite a nice fellow apparently, Shannon – who no one much likes but fortunately didn’t fight tonight, or at least he hadn’t by the time I left. He’s been known to bite sizeable chunks out of his opponents, and should be enough to convince most sceptics that demonic possession didn’t die out with the inquisition. There were a few ferals with their dreadlocks and hippy clothes, presumably up from Auravale, and the motley of semi-retired hippies from Rossville with their tie-die and happy attitudes. There’s Rainforest who, as usual, danced flat-out non-stop longer than any normal human can – and he’s not on drugs. I think he took Amy home, so he’s probably happy. Levi was there, looking almost exactly like Wolverine from X-Men, along with Matthew who’s growing his hair again and still planning to buy that multi-track recorder so he can make an album (which I hope he does as he’s far and away the best guitarist I’ve seen), and Justin who’s just recovered from a broken leg caused in a motorbike accident, but apart from that seems to be exactly as he used to be. It seems Cooktown and surrounds are going along their merry was unperturbed by my absence, although I’m always surprised by the number of people I don’t know or can’t remember who welcome me back. I nearly wasn’t going to bother going in but I’m glad I did, as it was worth seeing the Cooktown gang. I’m not really a party person – in fact I think I’m something of a loner.

3:44am

• I’m listening to Metallica and the Trans Siberian Orchestra’s Mad Russian Christmas and thinking how much more pleasing melodic music is compared to that dance music I’ve been listening to all night. That electronic music gets very repetitive after a while, and just can’t compare to an orchestra or some good guitar.